Epileptic patients faced three successive curses before reaching their present medical status, which is reasonably comfortable for a majority of them. The first one was that epileptic seizures were not considered an illness, but supernatural, awe-inspiring phenomena. It took many centuries for epilepsy to be included in the clinical field, and recent evaluations of the sociological problems encountered by epileptic patients show that some difficulties are still lingering.
The second move was to find a treatment. In the works of C. B. RADCLIFFE, "the name of Sir Charles LOCOCK ought to be remembered with gratitude by every epileptic" (Radcliffe C. B.--Epilepsy and other convulsive affections of the nervous system. Their pathology and treatment. London, J. Churchill, 1881), since he proposed the use of bromides in 1857, successfully but at the price of considerable side-effects.
This became the third curse on an illness duly recognized as such, with a fair number of active remedies, namely valproic acid, phenytoin and carbamazepine, none of them being devoid of side-effects sometimes painful, to the point of almost including iatrogenic symptom, "mental viscosity" or "glischroidy" in its duly barbiturised patients' descriptions.
One of the most disturbing of these unwanted effects is the "risk of major malformations, minor anomalies and developmental disturbances in the fetus or infant" of epileptic mothers. Hence the "Guidelines for the Care of Epileptic Women of Childbearing Age, of the Commission on Genetics, Pregnancy, and the Child, of the International League Against Epilepsy" (Epilepsia, 1989, 30, 409-410).
The present invention relates to the use of stiripentol to counteract such a risk.
Stiripentol (INN), or 1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-4,4-dimethylpent-1-en-3-ol has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,910,959 (Vallet) as a CNS drug, and further was proposed for the treatment of epilepsy (Loiseau P. and Duche B. in Antiepileptic Drugs, Third Edition edited by R. Levy et al, Raven Press, New York, 1989; Vincent J. C. in New Anticonvulsant Drugs, Edited by B. S. Meldrum and R. J. Porter, John Libbey, London, 1986).
If has now been found that stiripentol alleviates or prevents some major undesired effects and phenomena caused by the usual antiepileptic drugs. For example, while all major antiepileptic drugs are teratogens or pro-teratogens (Teratogenicity of Antiepileptic Drugs: Analysis of Possible Risk Factors by Kaneko et al., Epilepsia, 29: 459-467 (1988); Teratogenicity of Antiepileptic Drug Combinations with Special Emphasis on Epoxide (of Carbamazepine) by Lindhout et al. Epilepsia, 25: 77-83 (1984); Fetal Hydantoin Syndrome by James W. M. Hanson, Teratology, 13: 185-188, 1976), stiripentol is an antiepileptic drug capable of decreasing or eliminating the teratogenicity associated with those drugs.